The need for innovative, smart building automation is growing. So are our products and our team. We are happy to share that Henri Kroosmann, an expert in leading and scaling software development teams recently joined our team as VP of Engineering.
Working at global giants like Pipedrive and Skype and helping to build a global business from the ground up would give an engineer a great perspective and mindset on how to build and optimise processes. Lucky for us, the Bisly team is now even stronger with such a teammate ready to fuel our products.
Coming from a B2B SaaS background with expertise in scaling software engineering teams, Henri will lead the engineering team and use his experience to further improve Bisly’s solutions.
We sat down with Henri to find out more about his background, experience and why he decided to join the Bisly team. He also gave us some hints about what he has in store for Bisly’s products and shared some eye-opening advice for engineers.
Read on to learn the answers!
1. Welcome to the team, Henri! Could you tell us about your background and previous experience?
I’ve been lucky enough to be part of 2 startup unicorns – Skype & Pipedrive. Skype taught me that in information technology, you should always keep the whole world in mind, and you can find customers everywhere if your product is good enough. I’m truly happy that my first experience was with a company that had such a global reach and I believe that the impact of Skype is still part of the way I’m thinking today.
I started at Pipedrive as a senior engineer, but thanks to my previous experience at Skype I knew that instead of working directly with technology, I wanted to work with people who work with technology. After launching the first modern front-end application my career took more of a managerial path where my focus was setting up the best possible workflows for my own teams and introducing processes on how to scale existing engineering organizations.
The greatest learning from Pipedrive is that the people are always the heart and soul of the company, not the product or tools that the company is selling.
After 8 years at Pipedrive I joined a small startup called Brainbase, where our focus was to revolutionise the licensing industry which had been and still is somewhat hidden from everyone although the impact of this industry is everywhere around us.
The idea of how brand licenses are sold through many different layers of agencies, how the revenue is collected back and how this all can be made as easy to handle as possible with a relatively small team was a great challenge.
The fourth decision of my career (and the most important one of them all) is not to be working and staying home with my second daughter through her first and second years.
While my previous challenges were about focusing on how many people work together, my daughter’s was about how a single person will survive in this world. Thanks to my both daughters I’ve learnt that in many cases simple things can be complex, but also, many complex things can be very simple if you put your mind to it. This is a mindset that I want to carry over into my professional career.
2. What made you decide to continue your career in the proptech scene in Bisly?
When I look at different job opportunities, there are 3 main things I want to understand.
Firstly, what the company does, who the people are behind it, are they innovative enough and do they have the ambition to change the world.
Secondly, I want to see if my previous experience can help solve some of the challenges immediately. Finally, as a combination of the previous points, I want to have some perspective on where we (me and the company) can grow together.
In the case of Bisly, answering my 3 questions was relatively easy. The founding team is strong, very experienced and they don’t want to change the world, they are already doing it.
In terms of role and responsibility fit, I understood after the first presentation that this was the company I wanted to be at.
3. What challenges and benefits does proptech offer engineers?
To answer this question, you need to look at where the company is located.
In the Estonian context, there aren’t many IT companies that operate in this area. There are even less startups in that sector that offer their service with their own hardware. For software engineers who come from B2B SaaS background, this is a fresh way of building well performing and scalable software.
After all, engineers are looking for the next unique challenge.
4. What makes Bisly a `smarter` building solution from a technical point of view?
There have been automated systems out there for quite some time, but I strongly believe that Bisly is the first company that is able to seamlessly integrate our own hardware with our great software.
For our customers, Bisly’s solution is not only “smart” for the end user, but we also introduce a smart way to plan and install the solution.
Looking at the whole process from planning to the finished solution and automating it is also a unique challenge for our engineers. It doesn’t matter if the engineers are working with our hardware, our servers or our end-user applications.
5. What is next for Bisly solutions?
Our software development team is working hard to put together our next generation Bisly product, which will empower all parties (our distribution and installation partners, property developers and end users) who come into contact with any of the Bisly systems.
On top of this platform, we want to expand our product and service offerings and I’m quite confident that this is a solid foundation for our founders’ desire to change the world.
6. What would be your advice to fellow engineers and those who want to join the Bisly team?
Most importantly, every engineer should know their own growth plan. What does this mean?
This means that people who apply know what they want to achieve in the next 3-5 years and together we can understand how this fits in with Bisly’s goals.
Employment is a two-way relationship where both parties try to support each other in their growth objectives. If this part is clear, then look for a suitable role and apply.
Join our team!
We have recently expanded into Germany and the UK and more news are on the way.
If you want to join a fast-growing proptech company with a mission to make smart buildings even smarter, check out the opportunities on our Careers page!